


The Cure (Reddie)

by chaotically



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Internalized Homophobia, M/M, The Losers Club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 08:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12790512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaotically/pseuds/chaotically
Summary: Eddie is disgusting for wanting him.





	The Cure (Reddie)

**Author's Note:**

> My first IT fic on here, so please bear with me! Characters' ages are mentioned in each section. Also posted on tumblr under the same username. Hope you like it!

Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he doesn’t like it.

The first time he feels it, that dreaded thing, all seven of the Losers are down in the Barrens. They have just finished swimming at the quarry, and they’re all exhausted, but it’s barely mid afternoon and no one feels like going home yet. 

Ben keeps stealing glances at Beverly, but every time she notices he looks away, blushing hotly. Stanley and Bill are sitting on a tree stump and arguing about something. Mike is laying on the grass with his eyes closed. 

And Eddie is watching Richie. The boy’s curly head is bowed, his fingers working deftly at a mess of grass in his lap.

“What are you doing, Rich?” Eddie asks. The small thirteen-year-old leans forward to take a peek. 

But Richie snatches his project away, hiding it behind his body. “You’ll see, Eds,” he says with a wicked grin, adjusting his thick-lensed glasses. 

Eddie can’t do anything but comply. Something about the look Richie gives him, mischievous and promising, like they share their own little secret, makes a warm feeling come alight in his stomach. 

The first time, it’s bubbly and unfamiliar, and he doesn’t think much of it. 

So Eddie dismisses the feeling entirely. He contributes a little to Stan and Bill’s idle debate, and helps Mike pick the grass out of his hair when he wakes up from his nap. When it’s nearly evening time and the Losers decide that their parents probably want them home by now, Richie finally unveils his creation.

“Here ya go, Eds,” the boy says, holding up his masterpiece. His face is glowing with pride. 

It’s a mangled mess of greenery, held together with hapless knots. Tucked into each knot is a little flower. (Stan would probably point out that the “flowers” are actually weeds, but Eddie doesn’t care about that.)

“Oh,” Eddie says. “What is it?”

Richie just grins, and bends to place his creation on top of Eddie’s head. “It’s a flower crown, obviously,” he says, and then slips instantly into his annoying British Voice. “For our good prince, Edward Kaspbrak! The cutest prince in all the lands!”

Eddie feels himself blushing as brightly as Ben does whenever Beverly looks at him. “Thanks, Rich,” he mutters. He feels the other Losers’ eyes on him. 

“No problem, Eds,” Richie says, and pinches Eddie’s cheek playfully. 

“Stop it! I hate that!”

It isn’t a lie that Eddie despises the cheek pinching. But he keeps the flower crown, keeps it on his dresser for years, until the flowers (weeds) wither and crumble away. 

-

When they go to high school and start being preoccupied with their own things, The Losers Club begin the tradition of movie night. Every Friday evening, the seven convene in the Denbrough’s living room and all pile on the couch to watch a movie; sometimes Georgie joins them but he usually falls asleep within ten minutes. 

On one such night, when Eddie is fifteen, Richie and Stan insist they rent the Star Wars film that had come out that summer- Eddie can’t even remember the title. He leaves his mother and his algebra homework to show up at the Denbrough home at precisely seven o’clock. (P-p-precisely), Bill always insists.

Eddie has spent a lot of the two years thinking about Richie Tozier. Other than Big Bill, RIch is probably the Loser he’s closest to. 

But Richie is different from the rest of the group. He loves Bill, Stan, Mike, Bev and Ben more than anything in the world, but Richard Tozier makes him feel like he’s on fire and melting and flying and buried six feet under, all at once. His stupid goofy smile makes him want to puke. But in a good way, somehow. And Eddie hates puking.

He doesn’t think much of it. 

This Movie Night, Ben and Beverly are curled up tightly in the corner of the couch- sometimes, the couples’ public displays of affection make him want to puke in the not-good way. The other five are simply piled together in a tangle of limbs. 

Eddie, being the smallest by far, is always the one who ends up with the most amount of arms around him, like a baby bird in the middle of a nest of Losers. He doesn’t mind it. But, like always, he finds himself hyper-aware of Richie Tozier’s skin against his; the boy’s chin is resting atop his hair, his hand lying comfortably on his waist.

Eddie can’t breathe.

Too bad he threw out his bullshit aspirator years ago. He could use a puff of battery acid. 

“You want some popcorn, Eds?” Richie asks him. “Your hand is kinda stuck near Stan the Man’s dick, but I can feed it to you, if you want.”

Eddie feels himself turning scarlet. Richie had muttered it just quiet enough, so the others likely couldn’t hear it over the blaring lightsaber sounds of the movie.

“Uh, no thanks,” he says through clenched teeth. 

“Okay, my love.” Richie cranes his head just enough to plant a kiss on the crown of his unruly hair.

Eddie Kaspbrak has survived years of Richie’s teasing and trashmouthed jokes at his (or more frequently, his mom’s) expense. He’s endured the nicknames and the constant “you’re so cute, Eds,” but with every remark, he feels himself falling deeper. And he hates himself for it. 

He’s disgusting, Eddie thinks, and he feels Richie’s jaw move against the crown of his head as he chomps down on a mouthful of popcorn. Boys aren’t supposed to have crushes on boys. 

He’s sick. That’s what his mother would say if she knew, god forbid. He’s sick and nothing can cure him. 

Richie’s kiss on his forehead has his predicament crawling deep under his skin. He doesn’t want to let his ailment bother him, he wants to leave it alone; but he doesn’t want to let it fester. 

“Excuse me,” Eddie says, as politely as he can muster.

The Losers get up out of the way for him, probably assuming he has to go take a piss. Eddie clambers off the couch and shoves his sneakers back on. 

“Eddie, what’s w-wrong?” Bill asks. “Where are you going?”

“I just remembered I- have to do something.” He doesn’t look at them. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Mike calls after him as Eddie stalks out of the living room. He grabs his coat and throws open the front door. 

He waits, for just a split second, for Richie to come after him or at least say something. He does neither. 

-

 

Eddie Kaspbrak is seventeen, and he can say he has spent the better part of four years convincing himself that he is not in love with Richie Tozier. Still to no avail. 

He’s also deftly avoided thinking about his sexuality. Eddie has never, not once in his life, liked a girl in that way. Even back in middle school, when Ben and Bev were going crazy for each other and Bill had a massive crush on a girl in their science class, he has known he’s different. 

This goes hand in hand with the Richie situation. They are scheming together, co-conspirators hellbent on ruining Eddie’s life and his friendships with the Losers. They make his mom even more concerned for him. They make him resent church and stop attending altogether. 

Richie’s teasing doesn’t stop, and neither do Eddie’s feelings. 

Everything that’s been brewing in his brain for years comes to a head on the first day of summer vacation. 

The Losers are triumphant after finishing their junior year. Just one more year left to go, they cheer, and they can leave this town. Eddie, especially, is eager to leave behind the close-mindedness of 1990s American suburbia. Maybe, after high school, he can finally be himself. 

Mike suggests they go for a swim at the quarry, for old times sake. All the Losers agree. They haven’t been down there in years; lately they’ve been preoccupied with school, and they’re a little old to go swimming anyway. 

So as soon as school lets out, the seven heads down to the quarry. They race and splash and wrestle playfully in the water, like they did when there was only four of them, like they did when they were kids. 

It’s hours later when Stan has to go home, and then one by one, the other Losers tug back on their dry clothes and trek back to civilization. After Beverly leaves, only Eddie remains. Eddie, that is, and Richie Tozier. 

Eddie has made a point of spending as little time possible with Richie alone. If they’re alone, he thinks, what’s stopping him from breaking?

The two of them are sitting on a flat-topped rock, shirtless, Eddie wrapped in a frayed towel from his house. Richie’s portable radio blares a song by The Cure. Ironic, he thinks, considering how his illness seems to have none.

He doesn’t want to go home. Richie understands this.

Richie has always understood him better than any other Loser. They have a sort of special bond, as Ben had commented once. It nearly made Eddie laugh out loud.

They’re quiet for a long time, and then Richie speaks. 

“What’s wrong, Eddie spaghetti?”

Eddie doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t bother protesting the nickname. He can visualize Richie’s expression without even looking at him; that soft, concerned look, brown eyes massive behind the glasses he still wears. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says weakly. 

Richie, of course, isn’t convinced. “I know when something is wrong with my best friend, Eds.”

The phrase best friend makes him feel like his heart just jumped off a cliff and splattered. Richie goes on. “You’ve been acting so weird. Weirder than normal,” he insists. 

Eddie knows if-when-he tells Richie about his sexuality, he won’t see him any differently. He’s understanding like that. He’ll accept him. But Eddie’s scared that he can’t accept himself. 

They don’t speak for a long moment. 

And then Eddie breaks the silence. “I’m sick, Rich,” he says, feeling the three words already squeezing at his throat. “I’m disgusting. I can’t be fixed.”

Richie Tozier leans in, gently placing a hand on his bare shoulder. Eddie is staring at his feet. 

“You’re not sick, Eds,” he tells him. “It’s not true. You know that.”

He shakes off Richie’s hand, frustrated. “I’m sick in the head,” he says, still circumlocuting the subject. “Not like your ADHD or OCD like Stanley- kind of like that, I guess. I’m just disgusting. I’m so sick.”

“Eddie, look at me, please,” Richie begs, and the smaller boy obeys. Richie’s eyes alone are enough for tears to slip down his cheeks. “What are you talking about?”

 

“I like boys!” Eddie practically screams. He hears a faint echo off the still water of the quarry. “Not girls. Boys. Boys are hot and I want to kiss boys and date boys. There. Now you know. I’m disgusting.”

Richie just stares at him. His jaw falls open. On the inside, Eddie pleads him to say something, anything. Shame burns in his gut.

“Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie spaghetti, Eds, my love,” Richie says. The boy laughs. It isn’t a teasing laugh; it’s a genuine warm one, his eyes gleaming behind their huge lenses. 

Richie crouches on the sandy ground in front of him, forcing them to look at each other face-to-face. “That’s what you’ve been so worked up about?” he says with another chuckle. “Eds, you’re not sick. Being gay doesn’t mean you’re sick or gross or anything. That’s ridiculous.”

The g-word makes his heart stutter. Eddie swallows, wiping tears off his cheeks. “What?” he says, almost in a squeak. “But every other boy likes girls. It’s unnatural. My mom’s church says it’s a sin for a man to lay with another man.”

Richie takes both of Eddie’s hands in his larger, calloused ones. “No offense, Eds, but are you really going to listen to the church? You love who you love. It’s not something you should be ashamed of.”

“Oh.” He sniffles. He feels like such a crybaby. “I just- I didn’t know what the other would think, I don’t know- just, Derry is so conservative and I-”

“Slow down there, spaghetti. You’re starting to sound like Stuttering Bill.” Richie smiles a little, and reaches up to push a stray lock of hair off Eddie’s forehead.

“Besides,” he says softly, leaning in closer, “Are you calling Richie Trashmouth Tozier, man of a thousand voices, disgusting?”

Before Eddie can think about the implications of what Richie said, his lips are touching his; they’re chapped and peeling and taste like the saltwater of the quarry, but Eddie has never felt anything better in his life. He barely has a chance to react, moving his mouth tentatively against his, and then Richie is pulling away. 

“You…” Eddie stammers. He has never needed his bullshit aspirator so badly. 

Richie just grins at him. “Don’t sweat it, Eds,” he says, swiping away a single leftover tear, and kissing his cheek where his thumb had just been. “If you’re gross, then it’s you and me both.”


End file.
